Sanakawachi Village in Tokushima Prefecture, where the Yamakami Kaju Herb Garden is located, is famous not only for yuzu and sudachi, but also for kiwi. The temperature difference between day and night, and the well-drained soil in the mountainous area make Sanakawachi Village the perfect environment for kiwis to grow. This issue of Story is the story of how a jam using Sanakawachi Village's delicious kiwis was born.
The kiwis were harvested at Higashino Farm, a five-minute walk from the Yamakami Fruit and Herb Garden. We met the garden's owners, Hiroyuki Higashino and his wife Misumi, in early 2019. They took care of us because we were their neighbors since the Yamakami Fruit and Herb Garden was just a site that had been decided and there was no building or anything. Even now, they support us in some way, such as coming to our factory store and sometimes bringing us home-grown vegetables.
One day, as our relationship was deepening, Higashino-san told me about an out-of-spec kiwi. Among the harvested balls (locals call the fruit "balls"), there are naturally some that cannot be shipped to the market because they are misshapen or undersized. Since they cannot be shipped normally, they are sometimes placed in produce stands, but often remain unsold because of their appearance. He also distributes them to his neighbors, but sometimes he has no choice but to discard them when he can't finish eating them.
Higashino-san's kiwis are grown using the circular peeling method, rather than using plant growth regulators. The ring peeling method encourages growth by removing the outer skin of the kiwi vine in a ring shape. This is a labor-intensive process that results in fewer kiwis, but each kiwi is characterized by its high sugar content. This is true even for out-of-specification grapes.
Therefore, Sanagawachi Kiwi Jam ( ) was created by Yamakami Kaju Yakusyoen ( ). The recipe was developed by the Factory Lab at the Fuji Kawaguchiko Plant of Matsuyama Oil and Fat Co. Only sugar and lemon juice are added to the kiwi. It is a simple, simple jam. Bread, biscuits, yogurt, ice cream. Its sweet and sour taste and petit texture go well with everything. Mr. Higashino recommends it with hot water. The staff at Yamakami Kaju Herb Garden likes to substitute it with black tea and dissolve honey in it as well.
Kiwis that might have been discarded are given to us by Mr. Higashino, the producer of the kiwis, and the Yamakami Kaju Herb Garden acts as a bridge to turn them into jam, which is then enjoyed by our customers. We are still small in scale, but we would like to fulfill one of the SDGs, "Responsibility to Create, Responsibility to Cultivate," through our partnership.
